Alternative Molex SL Hand Crimp Tool

[DaAwesomeP]

Hello everyone!

Someone I used to work with had a hand crimp tool that crimped Molex SL crimps. It wasn't a really cheap and one and it wasn't the $360 USD Molex one. It locked-in and held the crimp for you and actually crimped properly instead of just smushing the crimp like the really cheap ones do.

When I looked some more, I think this might be it (sadly no longer made). Does Molex only make that one expensive tool now? Does anyone know of an alternative?

There is also this other tool that says it is compatible with C-grid SL, but not SL. Will it work?

This is purely for hobbyist/prototyping so nothing needs to be to spec.

Thanks and happy holidays (if you celebrate)!
Perry

EDIT: I should note that I'm not locked-in to using the Molex SL; if there is something else from another manufacturer that is 2.54mm pitch and has a nice locking latch then that works too!

[poorchava]

I would try crimpers from Engineer company. Japanese stuff, very good quality. As is typical of japanese companies - 90s era website. (Hello JST...)

Sadly, they mostly crimp only one section at s time, so each crimp requires you to use 2 separate recesses in the crimp die one after another. I can see them used only for prototyping work. This is just too slow for even a low volume production.

[davidb]

I use this one with Molex 150L pins.  It's inexpensive, but it works surprisingly well.

https://www.pololu.com/product/1928

[Paroidia]

 Putting this here in case anyone searches it later.

Search ebay for HTR 8519B, it's an ancient out of production SL crimp tool that's lost to time enough that the seller usually doesn't know what he's got and you can often get one for under $100. Even Molex's site doesn't have any documentation on it, I found a cross reference to a newer tool which in turn had a reference to the current in production SL hand crimp tools which is how I figured this out. There are two revisions one is more squarish than the other but they both have the same model number.